The environment is revealed only through and within one’s free project

Evidence

MY “environment” must not be confused with the place which I occupy and which we have already discussed. My environment is made up of the instrumental-things which surround me, including their peculiar coefficients of adversity and utility. … But I have a flat tire, the sun is too hot, the wind is blowing against me, etc., all phenomena which I had not foreseen: these are the environment. Of course they manifest themselves in and through my principal project; it is through the project that the wind can appear as a head wind or as a “good” wind, through the project that the sun is revealed as a propitious or an inconvenient warmth. The synthetic organization of these perpetual “accidents” constitutes the unity of what the Germans call my Umwelt, and this Umwelt can be revealed only within the limits of a free project—i.e., of the choice of the ends which I am. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1196

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines Sartre’s distinct sense of ‘environment’/Umwelt — the instrumental-things with their coefficients of adversity and utility, contrasted with mere place, and established as project-relative.
• XREF: Explicitly engages Bergson’s Matter and Memory on place vs. environment — a direct dialogue the reader’s systematic backdrop mapping should capture. — connects to: Particular projects remain free choices rather than being determined by the global project; The past is a free choice made from the present project — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1192; Environment acts on the subject only as comprehended and transformed into situation (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Environment acts on the subject only as comprehended and transformed into situation #expands (0.90)
• The permanence of things is constituted by one’s own ongoing project. #corroborates (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1284
• The facticity of place only becomes an obstacle through freedom’s original project #expands (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1175
• For social individuals, freedom is a positive relation to the environment #corroborates (0.80) — Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, 3668
• Freedom has concrete content only when engaged in the world #corroborates (0.80)
• An individual justifies himself only through a future-oriented project, never through present facticity #corroborates (0.75)